Post AUTx4KTraZ2Xf99vVo by olivierlacan@ruby.social
(DIR) More posts by olivierlacan@ruby.social
(DIR) Post #AUTuJoEkwDG4QomaCe by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-04-09T16:41:44Z
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I wish I could remember what it felt like when smartphones started to take offWas it obvious that within a few years vast numbers of people would have an internet-connected computer in their pockets, and it would have a seismic impact on society?(Yes, this is about AI)
(DIR) Post #AUTufP8Kx8jYwf4rb6 by Andres@mastodon.hardcoredevs.com
2023-04-09T16:44:47Z
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@simon I remember my first Symbian phone, a Nokia 6620.I was in heaven, checking my email while I listen MP3 files from a miniSD card.There was no better device in the world for me.
(DIR) Post #AUTuqfXeHtij1IHvxQ by kpl@social.lol
2023-04-09T16:45:09Z
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@simon i was all on board with smartphones being ubiquitous around the time the Sidekick came out. The iPhone just sealed it. I think the applications for AI are broader / more broad reaching than we imagined smartphones would be?
(DIR) Post #AUTv3e3h754oBVSsWu by martinkubler@mastodon.nu
2023-04-09T16:47:07Z
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@simon You know... I should be able to answer that, but looking back now oddly I can't. I mean it happened gradually. I can't even remember my first true smartphone. There was a thing call WAP (I think) before which looking back looked a bit like dial up Internet on a tiny screen. Odd that.
(DIR) Post #AUTvEgMStMVoVnVWka by jonn@social.doma.dev
2023-04-09T16:47:17Z
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@simon I still remember seeing the first iPhone for the first time. It was at the same horrible and fantastic. The UX felt very janky and I as a teenager decided to wait for a while before getting the first device. Besides I wanted to only spend money on programmable micro computersšBut to answer your question: it was obvious to me that if they fix the UX, it'll become mainstream.
(DIR) Post #AUTvPjvZyMcCl4Ck5I by simonzerafa@infosec.exchange
2023-04-09T16:47:12Z
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@simon The earliest smart phones weren't that smart and often didn't work well.That's the stage we are at with so called AI. It may get better, as did smartphones šš¤·āāļø
(DIR) Post #AUTvvUkJx8YSwL53Oy by jgg@qoto.org
2023-04-09T16:48:33Z
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@simon 20 years before, if you would tell anybody that we were going to end carrying in our pockets mics, cameras and a variety of sensors managed by lots of software made by random people that could be used to spy on us, they would think you were asylum material. But here we are.
(DIR) Post #AUTw5XVeX7zuPG0dX6 by jk@mastodon.social
2023-04-09T16:49:03Z
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@simon i remember sitting in a bar, being one of only two people who had one. the idea i could just look up anything right there and then was moderately exciting to most people, but in general i think i personally thought smartphones seemed like they'd mostly be popular with tech/gadget fans, businesspeople, and popular hyper-connected young people. even in ~2011 it seemed to me like the idea of everybody (even very non-tech-savvy people) having one was unrealistic
(DIR) Post #AUTw5YptbLmgWKUJiy by jk@mastodon.social
2023-04-09T16:53:15Z
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@simon maybe what happened next was somewhat supply-side-driven, though. all of the older members of my family, for example, ended up getting smartphones very quickly when those were the only phones in stores. that definitely pushed a lot of people into using something they might not have been exposed to. presumably the AI equivalent is something like "UIs get replaced with an LLM assistant interface that becomes the new frontend as most normal people forget how to perform the task manually"
(DIR) Post #AUTwFkXIxIR7hgeOUS by kpl@social.lol
2023-04-09T16:47:17Z
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@simon But, I think we were a little more blind to the potential downsides of ubiquitous internet access than we are to AI. Weāve had ML and algorithms for a long time. The new stuff is just faster, more powerful and even more opaque - which makes it scarier because I donāt think we see an end to the potential wide scale fuckery people can do with it.
(DIR) Post #AUTwFl7olXdxWvjYP2 by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-04-09T16:49:22Z
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@kpl yeah when smartphones took off I never suspected for a moment that they could lead to mass radicalization and QAnon and romance scams and worse
(DIR) Post #AUTwQKdhZzKyZUglXM by PeterR@mastodon.social
2023-04-09T16:49:36Z
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@simon They seemed largely inevitable, but back in say, 2005, it was tough to see that they would be as good as they were ten years later or that they would be as open to as many different kinds of applications as they are today.
(DIR) Post #AUTwgnLEdKE4Dstw0G by securopean@infosec.exchange
2023-04-09T16:49:48Z
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@simon My memory is that most people already had dumb phones, so it was quite a slow takeoff and a gradual realisation of how useful they were as the apps improved. The closest parallel for me is the Internet first reaching the general public here back in around '96, and that was an "obvious" moment which had people and businesses scrambling to get involved (and the stock market took off as a consequence).
(DIR) Post #AUTwrlxM7ilN71xypU by Wasauce@mstdn.party
2023-04-09T16:50:54Z
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@simon Interesting question! What date would you assign to "smartphones" coming out? e.g. Blackberry? iPhone? Android? | I'd say for me at least it took until the iPhone 3.
(DIR) Post #AUTx4KTraZ2Xf99vVo by olivierlacan@ruby.social
2023-04-09T16:51:22Z
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@simon it didnāt feel that obvious but the seismic shift felt very real to me in 2007.People seemed to argue ceaselessly about physical keyboards being superior, cost, and other aspects that were either clearly subjective or obviously not constants.It took a few years to stop hearing tired tropes but the undercurrent of awe was relatively similar. I think it wasnāt until 2010 that I saw ānormal peopleā adopting smartphones in their daily lives, mostly due to lowered cost and provider access.
(DIR) Post #AUTxFYpYZnwZLyf4xE by tedivm@hachyderm.io
2023-04-09T16:53:32Z
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@simon I think it became obvious when phone networks started rolling out the 3g networks. Before that it felt like it was something only geekier people (such as myself) would be interested in, but once halfway decent internet was available on them it did seem pretty obvious that it was going to take off.What I don't think any of us realized is that the camera combined with social media would be the biggest reason why.
(DIR) Post #AUTxQyvjsXZPUB00sy by mia@hcommons.social
2023-04-09T16:56:16Z
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@simon for me the 'web in your pocket' aspect was obvious, but the role of apps wasn't, and I was naively utopic about the interaction of both with social media
(DIR) Post #AUTxc7cTubkJcYItIu by marcprecipice@xoxo.zone
2023-04-09T17:00:13Z
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@simon it felt that way to me! I remember a friend describing the first iPhone as ālike alien technology.ā ChatGPT has a similar feel sometimes.
(DIR) Post #AUTxnFFzrBkKUd5g3M by mattedgar@mastodon.me.uk
2023-04-09T17:02:23Z
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@simon I worked for a telco that sold the phones and network connectivity. For a long while, senior leadership still thought of the mobile browser and apps as a toy or a "value added service" rather than the main deal. It was surprisingly hard, for example, to land the point that customers might want to manage their account on the device, rather than by voice call to our contact centres
(DIR) Post #AUTxyBBrJjIB48MwjY by kpl@social.lol
2023-04-09T17:05:02Z
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@simon Same. We had no precedent for it. We have precedents for the harm caused by ML.
(DIR) Post #AUTyCY5GzmRO7j8lfc by robinhouston@mathstodon.xyz
2023-04-09T17:09:41Z
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@simon It wasn't obvious to me. It seemed like a cool gadget, but I was feeling pretty jaded with gadgets by that stage. When I did finally get one, I was surprised how much I used it.
(DIR) Post #AUTyNE59hbhBH4B1Oa by neilk@xoxo.zone
2023-04-09T17:10:59Z
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@simon I remember that many factors blocked them becoming useful Most websites were desktop only. This was still the era of using PNGs for headers if you wanted a different fontIn San Francisco there was no carrier that had acceptable bandwidth for mobile web, and didnāt until maybe 2010. Our office bought these devices to enhance cellular signal
(DIR) Post #AUTyaNyIFH3ji5F3zM by drdrowland@fediscience.org
2023-04-09T17:13:11Z
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@simon Sure it was obvious, but back in the day the entry cost was five hundred dollars. With these llms there are models you can use for free on hardware you already have.
(DIR) Post #AUTylPknxUgsQKBwvY by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2023-04-09T17:13:44Z
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@simonI was on the "cobble things together with palm and ricochet gear" side and was mostly "yay, I can actually buy this now" combined with "ugh, why does it have a phone attached" :) so it was never an obvious memetic hazard like gpt is.
(DIR) Post #AUTyvnUQZ2FAw1TxoG by gewalker@hachyderm.io
2023-04-09T17:14:27Z
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@simon a) yeah, it was pretty obvious if you were old enough and b) no, it really isn't. At best it's about large language models which represent a fundamental confusion of intelligence with its most notable product (at least in my opinion).
(DIR) Post #AUTz7QuEM8I0Mq6Fd2 by codinghorror@infosec.exchange
2023-04-09T17:15:01Z
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@simon yep, it was obvious to me by 2014. I even told everyone about it multiple times. https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-iphone-software-revolution/ and https://blog.codinghorror.com/can-software-make-you-less-racist/
(DIR) Post #AUTzbrF10TXkjSKTrs by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2023-04-09T17:28:59Z
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@simon It was very gradual. I used Psion PDAs in the '90s & had a lot of smartphone facilities in the 20th century. By the mid-noughties there were early smartphones, but they were geek tools & few used them. Then the iPhone instantly obsoleted them all, but it was so very limited, without even 3G. No apps, no cut & paste, no multitasking. It wasn't an instant thing at all.The iPhone 3G made them viable. Android made them affordable. By 2010, they were going mainstream.
(DIR) Post #AUU0DRMhf48dU1qWKu by budgibson@me.dm
2023-04-09T17:47:39Z
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@simon I think it was clear smartphones could take off at the time of blackberry. At the time, the clear smartphone value proposition was as an omni-communication device. Iām not sure anyone saw that smartphones would become the main information processing device for virtually everyone on the planet.
(DIR) Post #AUU0vUJc3PNXNIP7B2 by nelson@tech.lgbt
2023-04-09T17:55:34Z
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@simon I wrote a blog post in 2007 about a road trip with my new iPhone that captures some of what the change was like."The most amazing change was having a little Internet terminal in my pocket with me. Every driving break I took was a chance to check my email, update my Twitter account, read some RSS feeds, check where I was going on Google Maps. This is a mixed blessing... I think once the novelty wears off I'll be good about keeping the thing in my pocket unless called for. "https://www.somebits.com/weblog/tech/iphone/road-trip.html
(DIR) Post #AUU17OoeKIiBnGbK0u by michaelrhanson@hachyderm.io
2023-04-09T17:56:39Z
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@simon from the inside of a browser company, with access to usage data, it was blindingly obvious by 2010
(DIR) Post #AUU1JuQ0ee5VHZ2bLM by roguelazer@hachyderm.io
2023-04-09T17:58:20Z
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@simon It was obvious the first time I saw a Nokia 770 that the web in our pockets would change the world. Compared that shift, the current round of glorified Markov bots just looks like a cheap parlor trick.
(DIR) Post #AUU1VsmgYZ6rglMBhg by NilaJones@zeroes.ca
2023-04-09T18:00:49Z
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@simon It was a very very slow takeoff I too had one of those early Nokias When the iPhone came out, a friend who bought one flat out didn't believe me, that I'd had a phone for two years that could access internet, play music, etc Apple did a really good job of convincing people they had invented something new
(DIR) Post #AUU3YEqngXE8c7X5kW by Stv@cosocial.ca
2023-04-09T18:24:56Z
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@simon I havenāt felt this excited - and that mix of optimism and worry about the change thatās gonna come since I first made a web page nearly 30 years ago. I knew in an instant it was going to both change everything and be my life.
(DIR) Post #AUU3lcoLuaRMgslrAO by charlotte@hachyderm.io
2023-04-09T18:26:50Z
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@simon To my memory, it was definitely not obvious at the time; it took several years before it was clear. Some people predicted it, but many others thought they were just hype and wouldn't gain traction. Within a few years, iPhones were widespread, and at that point, I think it would be fair to say it was obvious. (Android phones took a bit longer to become common)
(DIR) Post #AUU41tHGSSVGOS3BB2 by ripienaar@devco.social
2023-04-09T18:28:03Z
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@simon I worked for a global VAS who did lots of services for mobile networks around then. The networks were intentially stalling because till then they owned every path - even WAP was essentially wrapped by tbem. They knew once the genie of general internet was out there was no going back. And woukd hugely undercut their profits and visibility. Big money in selling customer telemetry. Also early windows CE phones were horrific.
(DIR) Post #AUU4EesVJ1I1V0YaXY by numist@xoxo.zone
2023-04-09T18:31:38Z
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@simon I was at Apple at the time and it was completely obvious to me that the world would never be the same (and yes I'm getting the same feeling from LLMs)
(DIR) Post #AUU4RBGQinVvPvieZM by sammachin@chaos.social
2023-04-09T18:33:09Z
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@simon the real shift though wasnāt in the devices or tech we had smartphones like the Nokia N95. It was only when internet companies like Apple & Google entered the market that the telco thinking really got the kick in the ass it needed.
(DIR) Post #AUU4poAXj17b1ri0tU by sophieschmieg@infosec.exchange
2023-04-09T18:39:30Z
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@simon I dunno, the thing about AI is that it has been all around us, powering many systems long before LLMs came out. LLMs are the hypervisible part of the iceberg, and I'm not even sure how useful they are compared to your random recommendation engine
(DIR) Post #AUU5GEJN9PSHdaRC4G by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-04-09T18:44:24Z
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@sophieschmieg ChatGPT feels to me similar to the iPhone: plenty of smartphones around before that, many with web and internet access - but it took the iPhone to really get things started behind us nerds
(DIR) Post #AUU5lusMwmQKcrusHw by trevorflowers@widerweb.org
2023-04-09T18:49:44Z
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@simon Yes, it was obvious that it would bring massive change. The direct changes were predictable (e.g. always-on culture) but the indirect effects (e.g. app stores defunding the open web) were less clear, as ~always.
(DIR) Post #AUU75C79BBKXXuaKPY by ewan@hachyderm.io
2023-04-09T19:04:30Z
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@simon I don't think it was obvious to most of us, primarily because bandwidth limited the connectivity. Once 3g became common, it felt like that was the inflexion point for me
(DIR) Post #AUU7nF7bMLPFcAnkmG by mucio@mastodon.social
2023-04-09T19:12:35Z
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@simon I had a t68i with the attached external camera. It was possible to send images via MMS. Then I bought a P800 and the first Xperia. I just liked tech gadgets (I had also a cheap Bluetooth headset) and I had a job to buy them. Similarly a few yeara before I bought a laptop. I didn't really taught about what will be the future, I just assumed it will happen (like for personal computer, internet, or mobile phones). Looking back it happened, faster than home computers
(DIR) Post #AUU8FaOLs3mdgv9RJo by j2bryson@mastodon.social
2023-04-09T19:17:40Z
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@simon No. The main thing I remember was that we had a means to video and witness what we saw, and how powerful THAT would be. Twitter is (was?) an outshoot of that trend. But the data thing was not immediately obvious, and I still resist my phone / body being the same as a workstation. I don't have email on my phone.
(DIR) Post #AUU8qIZj4jF19Hyf2G by pfhubbard@hachyderm.io
2023-04-09T19:21:44Z
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@simon When the App Store launched it was immediately clear. Not so much with web apps at launch.
(DIR) Post #AUU92zc4t3kC6U89Sq by trollball@mstdn.social
2023-04-09T19:22:55Z
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@simon Who will be Blackberry in this story?
(DIR) Post #AUU9JSwFcjXbgiQB9s by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-04-09T19:24:24Z
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@trollball Amazon Alexa?
(DIR) Post #AUU9bX1HBn2rYdO0UC by luis_in_brief@social.coop
2023-04-09T19:31:02Z
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@simon I was a little unclear as to whether it would be a mass market technology, until I saw an NYC construction worker using a first-gen iPhone and showing it to other guys on the worksite. It was self-explanatory in a way that blockchain never was and generative AI is.
(DIR) Post #AUU9zQ9INyRbCNWp6G by EricLeer@techhub.social
2023-04-09T19:31:45Z
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@simon For me it felt a bit more neutral: I still remember thinking that it would be nice the have a smartphone, but they are also kinda expensive. Later when I bought one it also did not feel like a revolutionary transition. I think first the entire eco system around it also has to develop for the real seismic impact to become apperant (other then being a slightly improved gadget).
(DIR) Post #AUUBOCxeedQdUWT0We by sam@tutut.delire.party
2023-04-09T19:52:40Z
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@simon It always feels obvious in hindsight š
(DIR) Post #AUUDmKsD5Y2stAYL68 by dotcode@mastodon.social
2023-04-09T20:19:28Z
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@simon @matthewskelton I remember it feeling like a progression from what we had before ... rather than a gargantuan seismic shift, it felt like a large tremor. A magnitude 3 or so.
(DIR) Post #AUUGFRuaCPWB1XfmFs by AlSweigart@mastodon.social
2023-04-09T20:47:23Z
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@simon You can watch 4 hour walking tours of any city on YouTube. Not a highlight of the tourist spots, just walking around a city without narration.This is something not possible before broadband and YouTube.
(DIR) Post #AUUH3ZJqvqrATeOKVE by josephholsten@mstdn.social
2023-04-09T20:56:29Z
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@simon Iād argue that it was āobviousā to some people between the Palm Treo (2002) and the iPhone (2007). I had visions of āeverywhere thin clientsā by at least 2005, influenced in no spall part by Robert X Cringelyās articles of the time.An iPad with cellular, Blink.app, Screens.app & any modern browser is almost an impossibly great implementation of my wildest dream.
(DIR) Post #AUUIB53DS8TWs9ktwu by michaelslade@mastodon.cloud
2023-04-09T21:08:57Z
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@simon At Macworld in 2007 I thought something really special had happened. Later that year, I traveled to Egypt and the iPhone was incredible. Having it meant I didnāt need a laptop to keep in touch with my bank or travel agent. There were 3 GSM networks in Cairo. AT&T had contracts with 2 and my phone happened to lock onto the third. AT&T provided the only outstanding service Iāve had from them in helping me change to one of the other 2.
(DIR) Post #AUURtLDvaDonMPwhjk by scerruti@csed.social
2023-04-09T22:57:46Z
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@simon it was not a revolution as such. There were parallel developments happening that converged in the smartphone.First we had Blackberry pagers. These were the first devices that really turned is into always on employees.Second was the advance of the cellphone itself from the bag phone to the 6190. Remember that FourSquare and Twitter were coming of age with this phone, connecting the Internet to the mobile user.Finally the iPod was rapidly increasing the numbers chatted to electronics.
(DIR) Post #AUUYwcnnNmOIQYEf5s by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-04-10T00:17:06Z
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Realized I could search my own blog to see what kind of iPhone stuff I was following back in 2007!Here are 8 quotations and 8 bookmarks that mentioned iPhone on my blog in 2007 https://simonwillison.net/search/?q=iPhone&year=2007
(DIR) Post #AUUbTqb5JWJYfzG9dw by lilianedwards@someone.elses.computer
2023-04-10T00:45:06Z
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@simon i wonder if i can do that for my FB.. hampered by not having iphne so name of phone will vary..
(DIR) Post #AUUcTuCK1iv9nVGiHY by chriscoyier@front-end.social
2023-04-10T00:56:24Z
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@simon 3000 pigs a day
(DIR) Post #AUUekjd8llBFr1xuka by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-04-10T01:22:04Z
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@chriscoyier I would LOVE to know what that number is today
(DIR) Post #AUUithbE5aAHyjbLgO by chreke@mastodon.social
2023-04-10T02:08:23Z
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@simon I think the most unpredictable thing was the explosion of social media, which more or less used the smartphone as a contamination vector. By the time the iPhone came out, Japan and Korea had already been on the Internet almost exclusively via feature phones for decades, so there was prior art for constant Internet access
(DIR) Post #AUUkn1zA5zOX5OkAsK by kat@weatherishappening.network
2023-04-10T02:29:38Z
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@simon i was a very late smartphone adopter. i held out for years. i could tweet from my T9 flip phone, and there were other services that let you get e.g. the next bus time via sms. the prospect of being able to read my emails instead of a book while actually *on* the bus held no appeal whatsoever, and as a photographer i was insufferably snobbish about the quality of those early smartphone cameras.iām also a curmudgeon about AI at the moment, but only time will tell. iāve also been a curmudgeon about a lot of things over the years that didnāt pan out.
(DIR) Post #AUUsnQQa1Ft4WeGdOK by dolmen@mamot.fr
2023-04-10T03:58:56Z
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@simon The Nokia N800 I bought around 2007 was a dream Internet-device-in-my-pocket. Except it wasn't a phone (only wifi+BT), mobile phone internet was so slow and so costly. Also I never thought I could one day use the mobile phone as a modem (feature which for a long time required additional subscription from the phone carrier).
(DIR) Post #AUV5v88tBcF9XFzs24 by stilkov@innoq.social
2023-04-10T06:26:19Z
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@simon I really miss Mark Pilgrimās writing
(DIR) Post #AUVBFejyCFtOCOwppg by frabcus@mastodon.social
2023-04-10T07:26:13Z
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@simon my memory is round about 2001 *everyone* got both old-style mobile phones, and also email. Those had an impact, but I can't remember it being negative in anyway, just new superpowers for everyone (was it just I was young?)Meanwhile, i'd seen DoCoMo phones everywhere in Japan in 2003. Which had an app ecosystem. And I had a Palm Treo, which had apps but not (for me yet) Internet.Then 2010 hit.
(DIR) Post #AUVhhl4vQGvCUuC48W by RL_Dane@fosstodon.org
2023-04-10T13:29:30Z
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@simonI remember being massively envious that friends had iphones and I only had an ipod touch. When I finally got my first iphone (a 4) in 2010, that always-on internet in my pocket was SUCH A DRUG.Before that, I used #BirdSite via SMS on my dodgy Nokia flip phone, and though quite limited, that was amazing as well.
(DIR) Post #AUVrRopchS0L2v4fvU by kpgraham@mastodon.social
2023-04-10T15:18:39Z
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@simon My first mention of the iPhone was December 31, 2007, when I predicted what would happen in 2008.āThe iPhone can get the internet almost anywhere for less than $100 per month. I suspect that most people will be able to stream internet radio to their car speakers through the iPhone. There will have to be some cool software written with huge buffers to account for the natural low signal patches, but the software should be knocking around by next Christmas.ā